Night Mail

A film by Harry Watt and Basil Wright

Night Mail (1936) remains one of the most popular and instantly recognised films in British film history, and was one of the most critically acclaimed films to be produced with the British documentary film movement. Night Mail is an account of the operation of the Royal Mail train delivery service, and shows the various stages and procedures of that operation.

The film begins with a voiceover commentary describing how the mail is collected for transit. Then, as the train proceeds along the course of its journey, we are shown the various regional railway stations at which it collects and deposits mail. Inside the train the process of sorting takes place. As the train nears its destination there is a sequence – the best known in the film – in which Auden’s spoken verse and Britten’s music are combined over montage images of racing train wheels.

Night Mail has been remastered and digitally restored, and beautifully packaged in a clamshell box. Music by Benjamin Britten. Poetry by W.H. Auden.